Foul shots give Mules a lift

NEWMARKET — The ball changed hands, bodies collided and the fouls piled up from the opening tip to the fourth quarter.

In the end, all confrontations were settled at the free-throw line — and the Newmarket High School girls basketball team cashed in like it won the lottery.

The Mules got to the line 39 times, scored 24 points and held off Epping’s second-half rally to secure a 40-30 Division IV win Monday night at Newmarket High School.

“We took care of the basketball; we didn’t force anything,” Newmarket coach Randy Edgerly said the success. “And we made free throws.”

Connect they did — at a rate not often seen.

Newmarket (5-4) scored so often from the line, it needed just seven made field goals to win the game by 10 points. Epping made 12 field goals, but in the game’s most obvious discrepancy, finished just 6-of-12 from the line.

Two of Newmarket’s baskets were first-quarter 3-pointers by Liz Hamel, who along with Maddie Teague came off the bench to score eight points. It was a Hamel three from the elbow that helped ignite Newmarket’s 17-1 run to close the final nine minutes of the first half, which ended with the Mules leading 25-9.

The Blue Devils, shaking off a one-point second quarter, responded with a run of their own — a 14-0 stretch in the third that brought it back to a two-possession game at 29-23.

“We stopped boxing out,” said Newmarket senior Taylor Linck, who finished with six points. “We started getting a lot of turnovers. We just kind of broke down.”

But run-stopping free throws by Katrina Holmes and Annaliese Schmidt helped the Mules hold a 33-23 lead entering the fourth quarter, and senior Jess Selling hit three foul shots in the final two minutes of regulation to help keep Epping at bay.

Holmes, Schmidt and Selling combined to score 16 points in the game — all from the foul line.

The teams were tied, 8-8, until Newmarket closed the final 1:17 of the first quarter with an 8-0 run. The spurt carried into the second quarter, with Hamel scoring on a fast-break layup and the Mules converting 7-of-10 from the line. Teague, fouled under the basket as time expired, made two foul shots as the teams prepared to jog off to the locker rooms.

The Mules led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter before the Devils came alive offensively, starting with Nadeau’s driving layup. Baer scored seven straight points, Sabrina Rivers converted an offensive rebound, and Nadeau hit two foul shots to pull Epping within six with two minutes left in the frame.

“I was in the zone,” said Baer, who scored all but two of her points in the second half. “I just wanted to win. I was trying to get the girls psyched up. Trying to get them into it. Trying to tell them that we can get a lead here.”

The Blue Devils, though, never got closer. Both teams finished with seven points in an even fourth quarter.

“It wasn’t anything we didn’t expect,” Epping coach Tim Hopley said of the up-and-down game. “They’re going to attack you. You’re either going to hold your ground and not give an inch, or you’re going to get overwhelmed.